


hourglass

by perlaret



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bad Guys Won, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Relationship(s), open endings, too little too late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 08:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12055572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/pseuds/perlaret
Summary: In the end, Kylo Ren's defection isn't enough.





	hourglass

The paths are familiar, even under cover of dark. It’s been a long night, but dawn is still some ways off.

His childhood home is behind him, a few lonely structures standing cold and apart. Poe doesn’t look back toward it. He said his goodbyes some hours ago. (Kes had been clear-eyed yet grave as they’d collected the last of their most valued belongings, pausing with a palm to the door of the bedroom Poe’s parents had once shared. “If anyone else but you had asked me to leave,” he’d said, voice low, “the answer would have been no.” Poe still regrets asking.) He pauses to gather his bearings, one hand on the smooth, familiar trunk of a koyo tree. It’s not the tree he seeks.

The Force Tree glows, uncanny. There’s a shadow beneath its cast, blacker than the forest beyond. Anger unravels in Poe, roiling his stomach; he grits his teeth to bite it back and steps forward.

“I didn’t expect you to actually show your face.”

The shadow turns, revealing the man. Blue light gleams against the silver of Kylo Ren’s mask. Poe’s seen that visage more times he can count now, so often he could call himself accustomed to the sight, but there is no room for familiarity between them now. Poe scans the lines of the helmet with contempt. It recalls too much. “Would you look at that? Spoke too soon.”

Kylo Ren lifts his hands, and the helmet unlocks with a mechanized hiss. The sight of his face, drawn and scarred, is no appeasement.

“I came because that is what we agreed,” Ren says, the words half a snarl.

Poe folds his arm across his chest, unperturbed. There’s no chill to ward off; Yavin this time of year is warm and humid no matter the hour. His neck still prickles with unease. He digs his fingers into the fabric of his shirtsleeves like that will hold back the emotion raging in his chest.

“Yeah? Guess we did,” Poe says. “So what’ve you got?”

Ren is agitated – that much is clear in the set of his broad shoulders and the subtle jerk of his jaw, like he too has the taste of anger on his tongue. Poe hates it, right now, that he knows this man’s taste at all. “Yavin IV is on the short list for extermination,” he says at length. “I’ve been sent to obtain anything worth salvaging before the responsible forces arrive. I suggest you make haste.”

“Haste,” Poe scoffs. “Yeah, I’ve already got that. It’s taken care of.” It’s been nearly two days since he’s slept more than a half hour at a time, consumed with the desperate effort to get word out and as many beings off-moon as possible. Ren is– was– had not been not their only informant. Just the most important one, in the end. Poe presses his tongue into a tooth until it aches, then says: “How does it feel, to know you let this happen?”

Kylo takes one step forward. A twigs snaps beneath the weight of his boot.

“I’ve been feeding your people information for months,” Ren says, his voice grating over the syllables. “I didn’t let anything happen.”

“My _people,”_ Poe says, incredulous, “are dead.”

Ren’s eyes take on the half-light, shining and dangerous. “I tried.”

“Sure,” Poe says, then inhales sharply, follows it with a bitter laugh. “Hey, question. Did you even mourn, when you got the news? About your mother?”

“Don’t,” Kylo snaps. He draws himself up, like looming over Poe is any defense or deterrent. Poe isn’t afraid of him. He knows what Ren can do, sure, but Poe has never been afraid of him.

“Well, did you?” Poe presses, his anger and weariness unspooling into something brittle and pointed. He realizes he’s spoiling for a fight, and damn him if he can’t win this one either, but he knows where Ren is weak, has come to know where his guard is thin.

Ren’s hands are fists at his sides. “Get off Yavin,” he growls. “Or you’ll be dead too.”

“Coward.” Poe meets his eyes when he says it and does not flinch. He enunciates every word: “You- should- have- _left.”_

The silence that draws between them is deadly, like a trigger already pulled, a blaster bolt strung invisible between them and waiting to be released. Poe hasn’t forgotten that either.

“But I didn’t.”

“No. You didn’t.” The tension only winches tighter. Poe forces the air, too thick, from his lungs. “When’s the last time you were even close enough to Snoke for any of this to count?”

Ren cannot sustain eye contact. He looks away, then jerks himself back, as though that could cover his multitude of faults. “He will trust me again. And then–“

“Liar,” Poe says, because it’s been long enough now he’s tired of pretending otherwise. Not when most everyone he cares about is gone, stardust, and those left are too few to remember their memory. His own mother’s grave is back the way he came. He’s said more goodbyes over too many empty coffins. “He has never trusted you, has he?”

Kylo Ren has no answer to that. Poe thinks it again, thinks, _coward,_ and maybe he’s imagining it but maybe he’s not– Kylo flinches, and Poe hopes viciously that he heard.

“Are you going to keep working for them?” Poe asks, once he grows tired of watching Kylo wrestle for words. “The First Order.”

“They’re hunting everyone down,” Ren says slowly. “They intend to eradicate any last vestige of the Resistance and any of its precursors.”

That’s not an answer. Or maybe it is. If so, it is not one that Poe is prepared to accept.

“Don’t help them,” Poe says. “Don’t you dare. Not anymore.”

“I can’t leave now,” Kylo says flatly. “There are... ways I could still–“

“No there aren’t,” Poe interrupts, stepping forward until he’s staring Ren directly in the eye. His hand has fallen to the blaster on his hip of its own accord; he grips the handle firmly, like an anchor. “This is it. There’s no point. You tried the work-from-within approach and it didn’t work.” He wrenches the blaster loose of its holster, feeling his resolve solidify. “So make up your mind, _Ren.”_

Kylo’s hand reaches out, closing tight around his wrist. It’s almost a surprise. Poe half-expected him to revert back to the Force, like Jakku all over again. The decision wouldn't surprise him.

“Or what, you’ll kill me?”

“I’ll do what I have to.” There aren’t many allies left, Poe figures. If Kylo isn’t willing to throw his lot in once and for all, then there’s always going to be that risk that he’ll turn again, save his own skin. If Poe is going to keep people alive, that’s an unacceptable gamble. It doesn't matter what the loss would be for himself. Poe can't think about that, not now.

Ren shoves his hand and the blaster away, turning his back. He looks toward the Force Tree. Poe waits, though he’s not willing to do so much longer. It's been too long already.

“–I was sent to destroy this too,” Ren says, reaching for a low hanging branch. He rubs a leaf between his gloved fingertips. Poe rests his own finger on the trigger and watches, waits. He grew up in this shade of this tree, climbed in its branches, nursed it back to health in the face of his own recklessly youthful decisions. There’s a sapling on his father’s waiting ship, small yet cared for, but the idea that tomorrow this too could be gone is just more salt in the wound. ("I can't take her with us, but I'll be damned if I let them take this too," Kes had said, his hands dark with dirt.)

“Is that your decision?”

Ren casts a glance back, his profile distinct and unhappy. “You’re forcing the issue.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken,” Poe says. He lifts the blaster again, pointedly cocking an eyebrow. He smiles, but it’s not a genuine thing. It’s been hard to feel genuine, these last months. “You’re the one here to destroy my home.”

Ren closes his eyes. There's another long, brittle beat. “I’ll be expected back soon. There’s not much time.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“What do you think?”

Poe sets his jaw and his stance. He’s not sure what to think, dawn feels no closer, and the anger and blame are so close within reach that his forefinger itches over his weapon. But they have so few allies left, and so little chance to ever fight back again. He has to take what he can get. That’s what the General wanted him to learn, wasn’t it? Big picture.

Poe doesn’t holster his weapon. But he doesn’t take the shot.

“I think that if we’re going to go, it needs to be now.”

Now is all that’s left.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [KP Week 2017](http://knightpilotweek.tumblr.com/)! Hope you enjoyed.


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